THREE.
( and I am the idiot with the painted face. )

"Ugh, I hate myself for being too drunk to do anything. When I see Kyler, I'm gonna kick his ass. Seriously, I don't even need to know karate," Emmy and Miguel walked into the library together, sitting at a table with Demetri and Eli. "Or, I can tattle on him to my dad. He's waiting for a reason to get him out of Sam's life and I'd be more than happy to give it to him."

"It's alright, Em," Miguel huffed.

"No," she looked at him in disbelief. "It's not okay. He beat you black and blue, and now you can't do one thing that makes you happy. I'm sorry, but, that's low."

"Wait, what?" Demetri tuned into the conversation. "That's it? No more karate?"

"I guess so," Miguel started to do his homework.

"It's probably for the best," Demetri shrugged. "It was starting to boost your confidence."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Miguel turned to him confused.

"No. What has confidence ever gotten anybody except for a black eye and their backpack thrown in the trash.

Emmy frowned, rubbing his best friend's back in comfort. "We got it out eventually, Dem. And cleaned it."

"Well, I thought it was kind of cool how you stood up to Kyler," Eli spoke up, trying to make light of the situation.

"Are you insane?" Demetri shut him down.

"Hey," Emmy said in a warning tone. "If Eli thinks it's cool, then he thinks it's cool. I thought it was cool. Why don't you think it's cool?"

"Fine. Let me ask you," Demetri shifted away from his homework, and turned to full face her. "What is the best super power anyone could have?"

"Teleportation."

"Super strength."

"Wrong. Em's is meh but still, wrong. Invisibility. A distant second would be super speed to run away fast."

Emmy furrowed her eyebrows. "But with teleportation you can run away immediately."

"Run away from who?"

She whipped around in her seat, seeing Kyler with his head over Eli's shoulder. There were simultaneous groans from her and Miguel, both of them being over his presence.

"Get out of here, Kyler," Emmy rolled her eyes.

"All right, Em. No need with the attitude. 'Never been in the library."

She looked at him with a blank face. "Shocker."

He stood up straighter, and Miguel started to panic. He jumped out of his seat, and grabbed onto both of their backpacks. "We were just leaving."

But Emmy didn't move an inch, glaring at Kyler as he grabbed the back of Eli's neck and pulled him closer. "Hey, where you going? Oh, look at this freak. Oh, shit! What kind of girl would ever kiss this shit?"

"Leave him alone, Kyler," Miguel said.

Kyler narrowed his eyes at him, pushing Eli away by his face and took a step towards Miguel. "What'd you say?"

Miguel let out a quiet sigh, looking down as he didn't repeat himself.

"You haven't had enough, 'Rhea?" Brucks gave him a shove. "Huh? Yeah, get the hell out of here, man."

Kyler roughly shoved Miguel, causing him to stumble out of the library. Eli rushed out, Demetri going to follow with his head hung low, but then Kyler yanked away his backpack. "Hey, you don't want this shit."

"No, come on," Demetri pleaded. "Not the trash. I just threw a...yogurt in there."

"Now it's double dip," Kyler mocked, Demetri slowly taking out a yogurt covered backpack out of the trash can.

As the latter left with his backpack between his fingers, a whistle behind the bullies made them turn.

"Hope you didn't forget about me," Emmy gave a sarcastic smile. She then hopped off her chair, stalking up to Kyler. "You probably already know this, but, my dad isn't very fond of you. And it'd be a shame if he somehow found out about what just happened."

His face dropped, and she walked past him, shoving her shoulder into his. "Have a good day, boys."

✸

Something that made Emmy feel odd as she stepped into the kitchen, was the fact that everyone look happy, and light. It made her pause, glancing around at them.

"Why's everyone smiling?" she asked, walking to the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk.

"I ⎯ um, Kyler and I aren't together anymore," Sam said, a small smile on her face as she said it.

Emmy paused getting the box filled with Honey Nut Cheerios, a surprised look in her eyes. "Really? I thought you liked him?"

"I thought so too, but, I guess he just showed his true colors."

The younger girl's face scrunched up. "So him literally harassing and bullying my best friends, along with the rest of the sophomore class, didn't count as showing his true colors."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Ok. I get it. I messed up with him."

Emmy snorted, pouring milk into her bowl full of cereal. "I could have told you that."

"Why didn't you?" Daniel asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Because, dear dad," she said in a mocking tone. "There are things that Sam needs to learn on her own. Plus, I thought she'd dump him after the first date, but, I guess not. You gotta learn to realize your mistakes before growing."

"Wow, Em. That was deep."

The girl shrugged. "Eh, not really. Pretty sure Eli read that from a book to me once."

A ding from her phone pulled away her attention, and she abruptly stood up from her chair. "That's Miguel. He's outside. Bye!"

"Wha ⎯ Where are you going?" Amanda called after her daughter.

Emmy stopped walking, taking a moment to try and think of something to say. She spun around, and innocent smile on her face. "I totally forgot to tell you guys, but, Miguel's yaya invited me over for breakfast."

"What's a yaya?" Anthony asked, taking a bite out of an english muffin before immediately spitting it back out.

"His grandma," Emmy turned around to leave again.

"Wait! What about your cereal?" Daniel questioned.

She turned around again. "Give it to Anthony. We all know he's gonna end up eating the couch foam if he continues eating those muffins. Now, bye bye!"

✸

"So, this is your dojo?" Emmy looked through the window of the building with her arms crossed. "No offense, but, I'm not as impressed as I hoped to be."

"Just, give it a chance. The dojo may need to be more furnished but Sensei Lawrence is a great teacher," Miguel gave a small a smile.

Emmy froze, head snapping to him and it felt like the world was closing in on her. "Lawrence? Sensei Lawrence? As in Johnny Lawrence?"

"Yeah!" Miguel was too excited for him to register the questioning feeling as to how she knew his sensei's name. "Come on. He's probably just in his office."

He wrapped his hand around her wrist, dragging into the dojo as she stumbled behind him. She heard something ringing, but she didn't know if that was a bell on the door or her ears.

A blonde man wearing a plain gray shirt and jeans then stepped out of a room in the back of dojo, and Emmy fell into more shock.

Holy shit.

"My mom says I can train again," Miguel informed him.

"She did?" Johnny asked, eyeing the girl next to him oddly. Why did she look so familiar? "Who's this?"

"This is my friend, Emmy LaRusso. She's here to join. I mean, if we still have the dojo."

"LaRusso?" Johnny cut in with a snappy tone "You're a LaRusso?"

"Yes," she said, eye boring into him. "And you're Johnny Lawrence. My dad has a lot of horror stories about you."

"What are you even doing here? Get the hell out of my dojo," Johnny pointed to the door behind her, but in Emmy fashion, she didn't move.

"Sensei," Miguel furrowed his eyebrows.

"You brought a LaRusso into my dojo?" Johnny turned to Miguel.

"No, he didn't bring me, I chose to come here. And I guess you're still salty about my father beating you," Emmy folded her arms over her chest. "And I'm not leaving. And if you try to forcefully make me leave I'll call the cops on you and have the entire place shut down."

Johnny loudly scoffed, in a state of disbelief.

Emmy sighed. "Look, I know that you and dad are, like, sworn enemies and you guys hate each other, but I just want to learn karate ⎯

"How about you go ask your old man?" Johnny cut her off, the disgust that a LaRusso was in his presence apparent.

She reeled back. "Can you let me tal ⎯ "

"Look, LaRusso. You wanna learn karate? Good for you. But I'm sure as hell not gonna be the one to teach y ⎯ "

"Shut up!" Emmy suddenly shouted, making Johnny stop talking and Miguel talk.

The blonde man squinted his eyes. "Excuse me?"

"God, do you always interrupt people when they're talking? You're not even letting me explain."

"Explain what?"

Emmy looked over to Miguel, who only shrugged, making her huff. She stepped closer to Johnny, not being surprised when he took a step back. "Oh, please. I'm not gonna bite."

"Spit it out," he snapped.

"Okay, okay," she took a deep breath, looking at Miguel again. "Can you, like, go outside for this?"

He didn't say anything, scrambling around before he walked through the front door, and was back outside.

"When I 7," she began. "My dad started to teach my older sister karate. He would always tell us stories about what adventures he went on with Mr. Miyagi, and how much karate helped him. I wanted to learn, but when I asked him, he said that he no. He said I was too young, which I didn't really understand because my sister is only a year older than me so I don't know why he said I was too you ⎯ "

"Get to it," the blonde man cut her off again.

"Right, sorry. Look, my point is that, for some reason, my dad never wanted me learn karate, and he never wanted to teach me karate. Despite me asking him for years, he just didn't want to do it," Emmy thickly swallowed. "I don't have the best relationship with him, we fight a lot, and he just doesn't seem to be interested in my interests. But I really want to learn karate."

She noticed how Johnny was intently listening to her.

"So, I don't care about whatever past or history you guys have with each other. And you will never have to worry about me telling him because then he will actually shut this place down, and I will never fully learn karate and Miguel will be a mopey sad dog for the rest of his life. And mostly because I really don't care about your 3 decade long feud."

Johnny scanned her over, curiosity spiking in his eyes. "You really don't care? You want to learn karate that badly?"

"Yes," she huffed out. "It's really the only thing I've ever really wanted to do, or at least the thing I want to cross of my life bucket list."

He hummed. "Fine. You're in."

"Well, I would hope so," Emmy scoffed. "I just gave you my life story."

"Whatever," he waved her off, eyes dropping down to her shoes. They were a light pink, and he started to notice that she wore pink rings, necklaces, and bracelets. "You like pink?"

Emmy furrowed her eyebrows. "Yeah...that's a weird question."

"I'm gonna call you PinkyPie."

"What?"

"Do you want to learn or not?"

"...I wanna learn."

"Then you're gonna have to deal with it."

"...Fine."

"You're just gonna observe for today, but tomorrow, I'll have you actually fight."

That made Emmy smile. "Great."

He then turned around to grab something in his office, and she turned to the window, seeing Miguel looking at her with a hopeful and questioning look. She gave an enthusiastic thumbs up with a grin, and he gave her one back.

✸ AUTHOR'S NOTE ! emmy why are you venting to a man you just met